Deep in my heart of Texas!

Being home is pretty cool … hmm.. but getting to see Carmen is a super bonus!!!
I didn’t start working right away after I got home. I really enjoyed lounging around with Carmen or her momo and crocheting or running errands!!!
My life with out Carmen would be so sad. I think we were instantly best friends. I’ve known her since 5th grade for me and 4th for her.
Her parents were my moms visiting and home teachers. My mom brought me over thinking I’d have fun with some little girl that was a grade below me and whom I had never met.
It was such a strange feeling meeting her. We didn’t really say much to each other but instantly I felt a connection to her. We bonded over Pokemon cards and how we were both really laid back. Carmen suggested that I ask my mom if I could spend the night.
As my mom and I drove off I told her about how Carmen wanted to know if I could spend the night.
She thought it seemed fine and as we were driving out of the coulder sack Carmen and her mom were out my the bric mail box waiving us down.
Her mom asked if I could spend the night some time.
Since the first time I’ve spend many years of sleep overs at their house.
I’ve practically grown up with Carmen. She’s been like a paternal twin. We’ve gone through all of our weird and silly stages together. We’ve been there for each other through the hard times and the great times! We’ve stuck together through distance and not being able to communicate as often.
I don’t have to impress her of call her a certain amount of times a month for her to feel like we are still friends. I don’t have to hide a weird quirk or pretend to like something for her. She knows pretty much all of my different attitudes and moods. I can always be myself around her which I can’t honestly be around anyone else.
She’s really smart and has always made great grades. She loves dressing for comfort. I love that she hasn’t changed her style because of other people suggestions. She is always true to herself. She always been so pretty and talented but has always been humble about it. She corrects Everyone’s grammar all the time. She is a video gaming- music loving- nick knack gathering- animals loving- kind hearted- level headed – girl.

For Halloween I was a Viking but most people though I was an opera singer or I was suppose to be from the train your dragon movie. Carmen was a character from Assassin’s Creed the medicine doctor. We made a funny looking group together. She scared some little kids while we took her nephew out trick or treating. It was pretty hilarious.
We carved pumpkins and Carmen’s mom made me decorate cookies. They turned out really cute and I didn’t want to eat them.
Scooter had babies!!! The little goaties are super cute!











Oh and my birthday came and went. I turned 22 this year. It just sounds so old.. I know it isn’t really and I probably have lots of more years to my life…but I still see myself as 18 and just starting out.
I got to decorate my cake which I’ve done for the past three year…and I knew about all my presents except a few because I got to pick them out. Last year I did the 21 monster and this year I did an elephant with my favorite pattern ( which is concentric circles…).









I’ve been getting into the swing of being home. I’ve spent some time with friends. I got to spend time at my sister’s house : D !!! I really like spending time with my sister. I feel sort of boring around her sometimes….well most of my family. It may be because I hold back a bit on my personality around just about everyone… and I don’t know.
Either way it is great that she was willing to let me bum there for as long as I did. It was great to see how the business is going! Yay for sisterly love!!! She is like a beam of sunshine she always seems to do her best to love everyone and brighten people’s day. I’m so proud of how hard her and her husband work in school and to make a living. Both my sister and her husband are great inspirations to me to do what I love and to find a way to make it work. Seeing how much they care about each other is cute too.
So bottom line: being home is wonderful!

Life after the summer and the road home

Packing up my stuff from my ritz room at Red Fishy was a weird feeling.
I knew it was right and my beloved roomie the great Faith Peters had already gone and so had a majority of the crew.
The weather was getting colder out
and we’d already had our end of the season dinner.

Lindsey and I headed out to Boise and I stayed my brother his wifey and their new baby Katelyn!
It was stressful to get everything arranged for buying a car and taking my drivers test.
What is a 22 year old doing with out a driver’s license you ask… well… it’s a long story but mainly has to do with helping pay bills while still at home and not having a car while in college.
everything seemed to work out I now own my first car, first six months of drivers insurance, first driers license, first GPS, and it all lead to my first road trip.
My trip home to Texas.
I visited friend up at BSU.
I got to go to Caldwell, ID to see my friend Danielle who worked with me at Red Fishy and got to go to her birthday party!!!
The drive home wasn’t as bad as I thought. I ran into a ton of construction! You know where you have to wait for a car with a blinking light to get you across the one lane road??!? Yeah five times and I was the pilot car four of the times :/ .
I Spent my first night in Colorado and by the second night I was home at the Taylors!!!

Since Red Fish I’ve become accustom to not seeing pretty mountains out my window every day and not having an employee cook but Carmen’s mom cooks a lot for good food too .

A summer of a life time, one I'll always remember

Right before I came to work at Red Fish Lake Lodge for the summer there was a lot of silly little things going on that felt like a huge deal to me.
Right around this time I was studying a certain part in preach my gospel.
I felt prompted to call my friend to help sort out a part in the manual that was never a clear subject to me. My friend and I talked for a long time about the topic and encouraged me to start a miracle journal.
He asked me to write one miracle in it each day. It made me better realize the hand of God in everything. During this time I was having issues with school, where I wanted to live, money, dealing with my missionary coming home, and deciding if school was something I was going to give up on or not.
Having this journal made me realize all the changes that happened since and were currently in the works happened for a reason.

Red Fish was an amazing example of being offered an opportunity to sit back and learn more about myself and what I really want. Red Fish gave me the time I needed to heal from the heart wrenching events that lead up to the move their.

I spent alot of time doing what I love most. I love art, music, my friends and family.. but being outdoors takes the cake! When I make art there is always criticizing and it never looking like how I want it to, with music I wear out some of my bests by over playing it, with family and friends some times it's a bigger effort than it needs to be.
When you are outdoors by yourself it is just amazing.
I spent the summer across the lake of Red Fish and did as many hikes as a I could. I had never been too amazed by Idaho until I came to this place and could see the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains every day. I started running the Fish Hook trail once or twice a day and exploring.

My main goal for the summer was always in the back of my head.
I wanted to summit a mountain.

All of the sudden everything picked up at Red Fish more people were coming in, I started working in more than one department, I stared going out for fun in the area with friends, and would spend the weekend in Boise.

The out look of my goal seemed pretty far out of reach.
As the season finally started to calm down I asked my boss if I could possibly get two days off a week to summit Thompson Peak.

The time came that following week right in the middle of getting over a sickness and with only 40 minutes to prepare for the road.
My friend Aaron Miller (AKA MilMil) basically made me allow him to come with me... I guess no one ever likes the sound of you going to Thompson alone.
MilMil came into my room during the lunch break and told me that our boss said we could go but that we'd have to leave tonight!!!
I stared at him blankly for a while... I was still pretty out of it because of some meds.
He started spouting off a list of what he thought we needed and so he headed back out to work, and I headed out to find a topographic map of the area and also to find out some back packing stuff.
As soon as MilMil was let off for the day we scrambled for food and to make sure we had what we needed for our packs.

We headed off later than we thought we should have.
Then began our adventure.

I had done a bunch of hikes but none with a back pack thingy...and because I am short the back pack hit an awkward part of the back of my head so I couldn't stand normally.
With-in the first hour I realized the comfort of my neck would be compromised for the rest of the trip. AND IT WAS.

We headed off of the Red Fish trail head and onto the Marshall Trail.
The trail lead to this ridiculous goat trail..if you kicked a rock off the side of the drop off you'd hear it roll down for a looooong time.

For a little bit I thought we were lost and so did MilMil. he was complaining about how it was dark an that we needed to stop... I looked at my watched and realized we hadn't been hiking long enough to even be at our stopping point for the night.
I gave in and we set up our tent. Oh and I LOST my sleeping bag. I must have fallen off my pack. MilMil said it was on well...guess not.
Yes, it was an extremely cold night!!!!

In the morning MilMil and I ate cereal and didn't eat much of a dinner because the hot dogs that the kitchen gave to us went bad...
MilMil proposed that he was going to go home and that I should come too. I had been having time breathing mostly because I was sick and couldn't breathe out of my nose. I'm sure it didn't help that I hadn't gone running since I got sick..so it had been two weeks.

The view was beautiful!!! I made a deal with my friend we could explore for about twenty minutes if we didn't see profile lake we'd turn back... guess what was about eight minutes away... PROFILE LAKE!









we left the heavier stuff in the tent and headed out around the side of Profile. When we got to the base of Thompson we abandoned everything but water bottles and cameras... there was no way we'd be able to basically scale up Thompson with our backpacks still on.

We started heading up. Towards the lower part of the summit there were Small loose rocks you had to be careful where you planted your foot about half of the time you couldn't find anywhere stable.
Closer to the top where huge rocks that was also a balancing acted. You had to test each rock to see if it would move after you got on it. If you didn't you'd end up like me I hopped from one rock onto another and it toppled to it's side and I smashed my side onto the rock...got some nice bruises and a sweet scar that is still yet to fade :)!
I started getting light headed after a while. I get light headed and drowsy alot throughout out my life but this was a little worse probably because I didn't eat much in the morning. We took a water break at the shoulder and continued on. the view was totally worth it.
YES I was stupid to go while still sick...and... Stupid to have not prepared better before hand.















The trip had me wanting more and after recouping from being sick and after I completed the next few weeks at Red Fish I started researching for what I could do next!

I cannot say enough what being at Red Fish did for me. What all of the people I met and friendships I made did for my life and my perspective.
How amazing it was to enduldge in my love of the outdoors for five great months!!!
How I realize that every thing happens for a reason.
How acomplishing that goal and most of my other summer goals really helped me devlope great self dicipline and dedication. I doubt people read all of this but I hope they enjoy the pictures!!!





"Living the dream at Red Fish Lake Lodge" - Red Fish lovers every where!

thus far at Red Fish Lake Lodge...

I had tried before to upload my blog but the internet being lame and a busy schedule had kept me pretty dang busy.
Working at Red Fish for the summer is great. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in Rexburg… and I never come up with anything that great nor do I ever find a scenario where I think of such a great experience as this has been.
I mostly work housekeeping I jump around and do my part in other departments ( dish washing, server assistant, wedding stuff, or just whatever.)
Life here is pretty simple. My most lingering questions typically are who I want to partner up with for the day and what we are having for lunch and dinner. Every day I wake up I get to see the beautiful Sawtooth mts. I love all that this place has to offer. Some days I’ll go enjoy kayaking or the amazing hikes. Other days I feel like going river rafting or horseback riding. Sometimes I go on road trips to Sun Valley or Boise.
Summers in Idaho are great because they have basically zero humidity and hardly any rain to stop my plans.
I guess there is one big question that I just push away. I’m going to be here till October. What am I going to do after this? I’ll have 2 and a 1/2 months to kill before school starts. I feel like a lot of the times I act impulsively and just do whatever. I could possibly go home, live with mi amiga Cassie in Washington, live in Boise, live in Idaho Falls, or … work at a ski resort . Yeah I have no clue but I’ve got some time.

I often find virtue being tried and tested here. The most difficult task for me is finding the balance of being how I should be, befriending all types of people, and not offending others.For Example: drinking. It use to be pretty easy because only in the past year or so do people look at me and think I could possibly even be old enough to drink. Now that I am 21 turning 22 this year... the age reason doesn't work. Altough it is true that it is not in harmony with the word of wisdom in my church.. not drining really is a personal choice. I've never seen a greast exampel of drinking in my life. It has also caused a lot of heart ache in my life as well. If it be a boyfriend who drank, or people I care about putting themselves in danger, or all that stuff...
The real questions are: Who am I? What do I stand for because of who I am? Annnd what good or bad do I do when when I feel like no one around is there watching me? I spent most of my teenage years defining myself with nothing. All that mattered was having someone to be shadowed in. I spent a lot of time not jumping into college. I had to know what I wanted. I had to spend time just by myself getting to know people, traveling, and deciding the things I would and would not do in my life. I have come to love the LDS church and do my best to respect all other people of beliefs or lack of beliefs. I do my best to be kind and do what I feel is right. Although people can be difficult I make it a goal to love everyone and if they are jerks I find one amazing thing about them and let it grow to respect for them and typically loving them. I love music, road trips, animals of all shapes and sizes, learning about people, my church, learning in general, my family, my friends, and the ability to create if it be with art, music, or doing service for others. I feel that I stand for what I feel is ‘good’. I do at times dwell in places I typically would not feel comfortable in, however, sometimes you have to be in the world and not hidden … if that makes any sense. When I think no one is watching I’m pretty much the same if not a little better. I am at times pretty impressionable, so I will loosen some slack to makes spending times with others easier while still keeping to my standards. When I’m alone I try to be honest and just the way I think I should be if people are watching. Sometimes I think thoughts I shouldn’t and pretty much beat myself up for it and switch it around to something better.
One night I was trying to fall asleep and made a life plan it went something like this :
Back to school in January of 2011-> Mission papers in by April 2011-> serve a full time mission and get back in December of 2012-> obtain a degree in art education and agriculture (the ag one may change) in April of 2015-> (while in school become dog training certified) do student teaching-> join the peace corps and use my agriculture degree to help people become self-sufficient with agriculture (be in peace corps for 2 years)-> come home from peace corps in 2017-> move back to Texas, Washington State, or somewhere close to the mountains and teach art.-> get a dog ( preferably a cardigan welsh corgi->go to graduate school-> teach at the university level-> get married 2020-> have 3 kids-> Name one after mt doggie->live, teach, and be happy til I die -the end. Yeah. I like it. As I wrote it down I realized that these were things I have wanted to do for a long time… So this is really what I want…please let my find a way.
I just wonder how I’m going to adjust going back to school. All the freedom and fun stuff to do will be greatly missed. I hate wearing jeans now I really only feel comfortable in running shorts. No homework, no classes, no extremely straight edged people ruining your fun, no pressure to date or get married, ample amounts of sun and soft serve ice cream. Oh Red Fish I love you!